A Life Apart
by fondleaf
Summary: He knows that one day this may end, that she may find something more permanent, or he will. Femshep/Garrus, written for the masskink meme on LiveJournal.


Note: This is another fill for a prompt on the masskink meme requesting 'friends with benefits' Garrus/Femshep relationship, with the focus on their trust and friendship as opposed to romance. I'm not sure how well it was executed, but this is the finished product. Cheers!

* * *

It was hard to believe that in place of the friend that once was, there were only chunks of burnt bone and flesh and armor, somewhere in space or burned into ashes on an icy planet. Where her body should have been there was only the vast expanse of space, a hole as big as his entire world and with crime growing like the swollen pit of absence in his stomach.

His blood had fallen like rain drops wasted on parched summer ground, having done nothing to wash away the immense heap of grime and injustice, as vast and unbearable as the dryness of the equatorial deserts. It angers him more to think that Shepard's blood barely moistened the soil, as wasted on the council as it would be on dry earth, their eyes turned from the threat snarling at them in the face with spittle and stink.

She comes back like any unfaltering ally, shooting in through a haze and dragging his body, soaked in his own blood and negativity, back to the ship he used to serve on, and as he returns to the place where this all started, he questions his actions and the route of his life above all else.

She pats him on the shoulder, eyes strong and confident in him and saying _"You've made the right choices_." He's not sure. He wants to make a difference, to prove that he can somehow still do it (_I can, I can, I can_), to be as important as those he admires are to him. He hopes he has done right above all else; there was no room to screw up the life he had – there had been enough of that; a lifetime bloated with wrong decisions and failed opportunities.

He trusts her more than himself, and as he lies in her cabin illuminated by the dull blue of her fish tank, he knows that whether they live a life apart or a life together, Shepard will always be pushing him forward and farther across the distance of this place.

* * *

_The annoying thing that holos never tell you_, Shepard thinks, _is that sex is a matter of trial and error. _She's happy that she's old enough to know better now, but her early trials in life had yielded unsatisfactory results. No one tells you about the stickiness and leg cramps, excessive sweating and discomfort and the incessant _"there?"_ and _"no wait over here"_ and _"does that feel good?"_ and _"ow"_ and _"oops"_ and _"put it back in_" and _"ouch ouch, my leg hurts, hold on a sec while I pop it back in place."_ These things were supposed to be romantic, or so the performers on the holos insinuated, something _sexy_, not a series of awkward positions in an effort to avoid pulling muscles or falling off the bed. It was not seductive. Some things were just not seductive. Her toothbrush was not seductive. The smell after taking off her armor was not seductive. Having to pop her hip back in mid thrust was not seductive.

Yet this was the nature of romantic relationships that usually produced sex. A certain avoidance of the unsavory things about the other person in return for rosy seduction and romance. She guessed that was to make the sex better. Most people tended to do it before _really_ getting to know each other, because maybe if they found out that the other was ridiculously sticky and sweaty after removing armor or had a habit of incessantly yelling "Impressive!" after they fired a gun, would be a little turned off. Sticky skin and involuntary exclamations were not romantic.

There was something liberating about this. None of the stresses of seduction, worrying about what to say or what to wear or what dinner to buy or where to go. No need for smooth lines or build-up throughout the night in hopes of something that may or may not happen. It was simple, to the point. It was honest. In that way it was more sincere and genuine than her other experiences.

The poor man, he had tried so hard the first time. Wine, music, clothes and pick-up lines. It was endearing.

She hopes he feels liberated now – well, he should, and so does she. The stickiness of hair clinging to her forehead is unpleasant and she's sure she has blood caked somewhere on her body. She removes her armor and is quite sure the stink she smells is coming from her. She certainly doesn't feel _sexy_, but she's raring to relieve some stress, ease some tension in her muscles with the turian that's just followed her up. He's removing his armor too, commenting on their last battle while briskly removing his clothes. She takes one look at him – it looks like there's some dirt blown on his face and remnants of ash on his neck.

"God, Garrus, you look terrible."

He looks down at her, turning his head slightly to side and pulling his mandibles in some expression she's sure if the equivalent of a cringe.

"Yeah, well, you kinda smell yourself, Shepard."

She brusquely knocks him upside the head, suppressing an offended smile as she shoves him towards her bed. "Then you can go back down and do some calibrations! I'll stay with my sweaty ass self."

Garrus fakes a grumble and all too quickly resigns himself to his fate, forgetting to tease Shepard as he puts his hands on her breasts and brings her towards him.

* * *

He wasn't necessarily attracted to humans, and he was quite sure the same went for Shepard regarding him. It wasn't that he found them to be _unattractive_ creatures – there was something about them that could be appreciated in an aesthetic manner. They were soft, _fleshy_, but soft, something that seemed a little delicate about them, even though he knew from experience that they were built with robust muscle and bone. His hands run along Shepard's sides – there's something admirable in an artistic sense about the human form. It's smooth, sleek, formed of curves rather than angles with light and flexible skin that bends with the muscles;_ streamline_, that's the word he likes, no hard angles or sharp protrusions on their body. Humans like to think that their men are "angular," but he doesn't see it. Their bodies are just as curved as the females. Sometimes he wonders what the purpose of being built like so was for. They weren't particularly strong swimmers compared to the other alien species on their planet, and they didn't evolve in caves with small spaces that needed squeezing through.

If he were raised around humans, he supposes, he might find them more physically exciting. Children raised in multicultural settings like the Citadel tended to be more open to various partners due to commonly interaction with other species at an early age. But he was raised mostly on Palaven, where there were not many other alien species besides his own race, and even though the normalcy of interacting with other aliens has long since been common, he still feels that many of his tastes and mindsets are the products of his rearing.

"It's normal," Shepard says, reassuring him when he's looks at her body quizzically and seems unsure of what he _should_ think. "It's not like any of us were taught about the birds, the bees, and the aliens when we were young."

"The what?"

"Nevermind," she laughs quickly, and brings his hand to her torso. He feels the hard muscles beneath her skin flex and tighten as she rolls her hips, and lays back, enjoying the feeling of her rhythmic muscles under his hand, among other things that quickly drown out his thoughts from earlier.

Her body may be strange and alien, but it's _strong_ and healthy and capable of charging through the galaxy without fail, and that in itself makes him appreciate it more than the others which bombard him on the holos.

* * *

This wasn't exactly a smart move on a personal level, he had to acknowledge. Shepard was one of the few friends he had left in this galaxy, perhaps his only close one. He didn't have too many casual friends to begin with, and many of those few ties had been severed with his departure from C-Sec. Investing both emotional and physical intimacy with one person with no guarantee of longevity or commitment wasn't a wise reliance. It would be different if he and Shepard were casual acquaintances.

But he trusts her enough – trusts her enough to be honest with him and break whatever physical thing they have off succinctly and mindfully should it ever come to that. It's not the loss of the physical aspect that worries him. He can deal with it. Sex isn't so important - he can find that other places.

She dispels his worries when she comes down to talk – she asks about him, about his life, his childhood, his time at C-Sec. He feels mildly inadequate, sharing so much of himself when she asks, while she rarely provides opportunity to talk about herself. In the moments like those in her cabin, he knows she understands – that he is not always made of steel but also of glass, hard but breakable and as tender as the scars she runs her hand down.

He knows one day this might end – Shepard might find something more permanent and serious, or he will. The idea that any man might deserve Shepard is hard for him to grasp – not that he thinks he's the one for the job, far from it – but he doesn't mind voicing his opinion when the topic briefly comes up.

"Y'know, whatever guy you decide to get hot and heavy with, is going to need my seal of approval, right?"

"Like hell Garrus, maybe you just won't meet him." She lightly punches his arm. "Who's the one who gives orders and approvals around here?"

"Ha, Shepard, you know I'm joking." He spreads his mandibles in a wide smile for reassurance. She knows he is, anyway. He wants to like whatever partner she may bring his way, he sincerely does. "It's just hard to believe that you'll actually find a man that deserves you. Or, at least handle you. Or, maybe a woman. Now that would be a good way to knock me off my feet." He adds a quick pointed finger for good measure.

She laughs, raises an eyebrow and looks at him from the corner of her eye, an amused smile stretching across her face. "So, are you saying that you're the man? That's bold, even for you, Garrus."

He puts his hands up in defeat. "Oh, putting words in my mouth, Shepard? Dirty move." He puts them down, chuckles, before his face falls back into a more serious expression. "I'm just warning that I'll be pretty critical. You've been through a lot of shit, we both have. I'd just like to see someone who can do the best for you."

There's a mumbling sound of amusement low in her throat as Shepard shakes her head and closes her eyes. "Alright Garrus, this conversation is making me tense. I think you need to relieve that." She throws her arms out in invitation from where she lies beside him.

He finds a quick laugh escapes his throat as she roughly pulls him over.

"Come on, I gotta enjoy this before you run off with some nice turian chick and I won't be able to share you anymore," she mumbles into his neck as she tousles with him, rubbing the more sensitive areas of his waist in encouragement.

"Likewise!" he manages, before she roughly shoves him against the mattress with a triumphant noise. He's not sure whether this is sparring or some sort of rough foreplay, but it gets his blood pumping and adrenaline going and it's getting him _excited_.

"Likewise? Like you mean me running off with a nice turian chick? That's an interesting thought, Vakarian," she teases, pausing her roughhousing to press down on his shoulders. He takes advantage of her pause to flip over, yanking her legs and pulling her off balance in the process. He is half laughing, half gasping, her own chuckles mixed in with the labored breaths for air.

Not many minutes later the labored breaths continue, punctuated by laughing sighs and rustling sheets and the grinding of their hips.

* * *

Human hands are strange – small, with so _many_ fingers that could move and bend and twist with each other in a way that was startling to him. Their fingers were so thin, _creepily so_, he once thought, and they reminded of him the alien arachnid species that dwells on the human home world.

But he trusts these hands above all else to handle his body, to touch him in softest spots and wring pleasure out of him. He comes to appreciate them in time, from how delicate they can be to how strongly they grip him. He appreciates their dexterity and the small spaces between his plates they reach, and when she says "_let's try this"_ he closes his eyes and entrusts his body to her.

He knows she does the same, for as he brings his mouth close to her neck, skin and lips, she doesn't shirk away but moves into him, trusting his sharp fingers to handle her thin skin with care even as he holds her tighter and pushes harder into her body.

Despite these things, he values her most when he is most vulnerable, clad in his heavy armor but speaking with naked emotion as he talks about his mistakes and his aspirations, trusting that she understands what it means to regret and to move on.

* * *

"Reapply for spectre candidacy," she says out of the blue one day, looking up at him seriously from where she sits next to his console.

He seems startled, looking at her incredulously, but she looks back with a steely and serious expression.

"I encouraged you after Sovereign. My viewpoints haven't changed."

_Why_? he asks. _I'm perfectly happy here_.

She stands up, crosses her arms. This conversation will always be ingrained in his mind.

_You want to stay on this ship forever, you don't want one of your own? You'll be able to make decisions as you see fit, without my interference or authority getting in your way. _

He wonders if she knows that he will always care about what she thinks, even if he disagrees, just has he hopes that she will always care about his opinion. Her judgment is one which he has forever respected. Her disapproval would always be something he would take into consideration.

She wonders if this is akin to pushing a fledgling out a nest, even though she knows he can easily choose to dismiss her suggestion. Perhaps it's her subconscious avoiding something. She can't be sure. But just like any friend, she wants to see him flourish and _be _and explore everything his life has to offer.

So she pushes him free.

* * *

He passes, as she predicted, patting him hard on the back as she thinks about how far he has come since C-Sec. He'll make his decisions apart from her now, live on his own and revisit the experience of compiling his own crew.

The main battery feels empty – she'll have to find a replacement.

And Shepard knows that to love and to understand means to be aware of the distances between people.

* * *

He doesn't let himself think about what a life with Shepard (_permanently, exclusively_) might be like. Somewhere, something tells him perhaps one day he will _think _about it, but that day hasn't come yet and he refuses to speed its process. His subconscious tells him it would change nothing, except add those things like _dates_, and _gifts_, and prying eyes that feel it's their business to know who the saviors of the galaxy are seriously screwing. _(People seemed not to care about who casually screwed who. As long as you didn't take someone seriously enough to want to spend a life together- well, that was different. That was a matter of _equality_ and hell if he knew the antiquated view many species held on that regarding each other.)_

He knows what reaches across the divide (_light years from planet to planet, system to system_) and he knows that to love and to understand is to be aware of the differences between people.

* * *

Time goes by as it always does, but she can't feel it the same way in space. There is no rise and fall of one sun – it is but a star, and she passes millions of suns as the Normandy races through endless expanse- passes millions of indistinguishable days and nights- and when she wakes up on the Citadel, realizes that one long day of darkness has been a month in movement.

Her arrangement with Garrus ends and resumes as people come in and out of her life. Some seem almost promising- _almost_. Just as with all things in her life, they burn out and fade until she is too far ahead to see them anymore, having outrun and outsmarted them with a frustration that ebbs and flows. It was difficult for people to understand what it was _like_ – to have lived the experiences of three lifetimes – to _know_ that there was no returning to the "normal" life, yet to understand that things still _needed_ to be done. It was a restlessness as aching as her bruised arm, fidgeting and irritable and so unaccustomed the freedom of an unburdened state.

She returns to her constant in antsy disappointment, laughing that _"I've had another fucking bad date."_

"_Another one?" _he taunts. _"I told you, dating is brutal."_

Sometimes he's with somebody, one of those infrequent things that he rarely makes room for. He can only muster a lighthearted, "Sorry, Shepard, but I don't think she'd take to sharing very well."

They talk anyway, and Shepard relieves her stress with whatever levo drink he has stocked. She knows one day he might settle down, find a permanent place, have a kid, marry a good turian woman and have an affair with his work. Then this will finally end; her good fortune all used up and their typical sparring matches ending with their armor _on_ for a change. Whatever brings him peace of mind; she will fight for that above all else. Maybe one day she'll do the same. She doubts it, but she's learned to stop predicting what comes into her life. Whatever's thrown at her, she'll take it, fight it and beat it into submission.

She's lost count of how many times he's told her, _"It didn't work out. So feel free to go on more bad dates again."_ It actually isn't that many, knowing his absorption in his work.

"I'm not a very good turian," he repeats, "And, I don't think any of that long term stuff is really going to work out for me that way." He keeps his eye on the target, firing next to Shepard as she gestures for the assistant in the shooting range to bring her more ammunition. "Most of the women I've met have been pretty good about being _good_ turians. I guess after all the shit that's happened, it's hard going back to living with really traditional turian mindsets."

"Is it really that bad?" Shepard asks as she lines up her rifle, peering through the scope. "You have to be able to relate on some level."

Garrus fires, hitting the center of the target. "I do. I'm not going to lie, turian ideas are ingrained in me. You can't get around what you were raised with." He reloads. "But I don't necessarily like everything about it. It can be rigid, and I'm not very good at really agreeing with all turian manners of lifestyle. The freedom of being able to do work outside of boundaries has spoiled me, I guess."

Although the thought of being a typical patron at places like Chora's Den throughout his life doesn't amuse him, he accepts the probability with a certain humor.

He'd tried it once with a human other than Shepard once, for the heck of it. He had relegated it to the back of his mind as a terrible experience. It wasn't necessarily that the sex was _bad_. In retrospect, the physicality of it hadn't differed much from his experiences with Shepard. The woman was certainly enthusiastic and open minded, but once it actually started _happening _he felt uninspired and terribly awkward with the alien body in front of him. By human standards this woman might have had a more enticing body; larger breasts, thinner waist, more delicate limbs, but it didn't do much for him, and left his hands tingling with hesitation and awkwardness along with a loss of memory of whatever Shepard had taught him. A gross sense of perversion and self-consciousness overcame him, distrusting of her many thin fingers touching his body and all its sensitive areas. When it was done, he had hastily grabbed his garments and bolted to the door, apologetically muttering that he had forgotten some calibrations that needed to be done on his ship.

He's not sure why it was so exponentially different with Shepard, but he was glad it was.

When she does find a more suitable partner, he knows he'll no longer be able to turn to her for his physical needs just as she will no longer be able to turn to him. He takes comfort in the fact that through everything else, she will stay remain his closest friend, as available and trustworthy as the day they met. He holds that fact tighter and closer to him than any rifle or position, with as much strength as that which embraces her body in the dead of night.

* * *

He receives her message on one of the rare occasions he's on the Citadel.

_Just got back from a mission in the Terminus. It was a success, but I like shit my armor took a beating. The crew is giving me hell. Do you have time for some drinks with your old commander?_

He relishes the few times she talks about herself – even if it's just a recap of her mission- as a time when he can listen and not talk about himself, the nature of their sharing finally in balance. Moments like these allow him to feel rather than think, sated by her stories of taking out mercs and absentmindedly inserting his own snarky quips that earn him slaps to the shoulder.

She finally sits back and rolls her shoulders, letting out an exasperated breath. "Luckily the payoff was good," she continues, "I was able to snag a couple new rifles." She squeezes a sore shoulder, her face drawing in a comical but uncomfortable expression.

He leans back, crossing his arms with a smug look that automatically makes her look at him suspiciously, ready for whatever sarcastic remark he has planned.

"It sounds like you're carrying some tension, maybe I can help you get rid of it." _Nothing like a good blast from the past to get things moving._

Shepard is up from the table and downing her drink within a second, rolling her neck and looking him over smugly. "'Bout time, you really thought I came all the way over here just to pay for your drinks?"

"Aw, c'mon, I'd hoped so," he drawls with feigned sadness, at odds with the wry smile his mouth had flared into. "And here I thought I'd get out of this as the lucky one."

* * *

Life changing experiences are but brief encounters, and it will not be long before the years of her life will be slipping through her cracked hands as easily as water and as quickly as a stream. There are few moments where life no longer seems tiresome to her, a certain clarity that makes the universe seem fresh even to her experiences eyes. Although they are but flashes in her psyche, it is in those fleeting moments she wishes she could have the ten lifetimes of an asari, to see the uninterrupted changes that will come in the next thousand years and continue to renew the vitality of their galaxy. Even though it is stagnant to her now, she knows it will change and flourish and evolve, and with a certain pang of guilt she wishes she could fully appreciate the grand changes her species, and herself, has brought to this place. She barely chuckles to herself and acknowledges her selfishness, but she wants to see it _all_, feel the adrenaline ten lifetimes over, along with the surprise and pleasure and exquisite pain.

With a certain playfulness she tugs at Garrus's fringe, hears a barely annoyed grunt as he sleeps, her gesture to him that she will be leaving soon. Her tenderness gets the better of her and she affectionately scratches the back of his head and neck, satisfied by the appreciative sounds he mumbles in slumber. She feels a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth - it is the nature of these things that dispels her guilts and aches of the future, for it is in these moments that she holds close the one life she will ever live, whose brevity was more precious than any stars or planets or endless lifetimes combined.

* * *

He hears Shepard leave and he vaguely remembers that he will have to wake soon, get ready for his own spectre assignment and trudge off silently from this place. Maybe he will die today. Maybe he won't.

Garrus knows that he is made up of the same atoms as stars and planets, the trash on Omega and the ammunition in his rifle. His body is the same primordial matter as that of a batarian or a hanar; it is the same matter that makes up Shepard, and he knows that when they die they will be as indistinguishable as the sands in a desert. _He knows _that even though they saved their galaxy, in a billion years their accomplishments will only be as bright as any of the other stars in the sky. In his mind _he knows_ he is just another organism made of cells and atoms, no more important than the root of a tree or the king of a nation. Eventually his body will be nothing but the ether in space, and in time his name may be forgotten, his singular life not even a blimp of light across the timeline of their universe. It is these facts that assure him of one thing he has learned – the only importance people have is how important they are to each other. _He knows_ when his heart stops beating and his mind slips away, it will not matter how many mercs he killed or how much money he made.

And _he knows_ that he is more than privileged to be important to someone whom he holds as valuable as the blood in his veins.

It is that realization that brings forth an awareness that seems dormant in the back of his mind, one that acknowledges the life in his body with a startling sharpness and makes the world seem so sudden and present, as vast and as refreshing as the sea inside. He remembers those moments as the times he feels the unfathomable _something_ that keeps his body moving and his mind thinking, both startling and reassuring and utterly defining.

It is those things that offer him a clear and satisfied mind, at peace with the present and with an acceptance of his life and Shepard and all those in it. He knows that whether they live a life apart or a life together, their paths will always cross, just as they have since the moment they met and will continue to do so until the moment they die. He is as sure of this as he is sure that the stars are bright, and with a peaceful mind he knows that regardless of all that has happened and all that will become, everything was exactly as it was meant to be.


End file.
